


The Next Day

by ILookDaftWithOneShoe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILookDaftWithOneShoe/pseuds/ILookDaftWithOneShoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>In later times, people would ask if the masked vigilante or masked criminal came first. In reality, it was the vigilante cracking down on muggings and robberies and assaults. The amount of ink they got in the newspapers was what prompted criminals to take it up, but they never tended to be the serious criminals; more gimmicky, less money-orientated. Loki was one of those. He never tried to make money, only chaos.</em>
</p><p>  <em>It turned out that Loki couldn't live without it.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Day

**Author's Note:**

> So, as of late, I reread Watchmen. For about the thousandth time, to be honest, but that combined with my interest in the Avengers led to me considering some human and mostly powerless Avengers.
> 
> Warning: referenced suicide, mental health issues

They all arrived at the graveyard at around the same time. When one was expected to attend a funeral, they were never early or late. Too much respect for the dead, or something like it.

There was the usual. Friends, family, co-workers, people who knew the dearly departed in passing and felt obligated to arrive. Gawkers who wanted to see the legend laid to rest.

The other figures in the legend; most of them were tucked up under rainproof clothing and had lost their noble shape. But a few wisps of crimson hair stuck out from under one hood; another jacket was simply too small for the huge man it contained.

The Avengers, of course. They had to say goodbye to their long-time villain, no matter how long ago it had been.

Tony Stark arrived late, though, unlike everyone else. He arrived in a limousine. He arrived boldly, striding among them like they were congregated just to see him. He arrived in an expensive three-piece suit and then stood in the rain with it, a friendly reminder of how much richer he was than everyone else.

"Have you no respect?" Sigurd hissed at Tony.

Tony's face twitched just a little, but he didn't reply.

The service was short. Serrure Laufeyson Burison, also known as Loki, dearly beloved laid to rest. May his soul rest in peace. Then the lowering of the coffin.

The wake was scheduled to begin in half an hour. People wanted to leave, get out of the rain and away from the general aura of death and misery.

Tony stayed behind. So did Sigurd. So did four others.

"How dare you disrespect the memory of my brother!" Sigurd snarled at Tony.

"I'm not here to argue with you," Tony said blandly.

"No arguing today," Steve agreed.

"Do you think my book...?" Clint said quietly.

"No," Tony said shortly. "It wasn't. He thought your book was funny."

"Still," Clint murmured.

Clint's book had not been entirely kind to Serrure. Loki. Whatever. But it hadn't been kind to anyone.

That said, it had been honest. Tony honestly couldn't say that Clint had been dishonest about them in any way. The Avengers had always been a train wreck from the start.

And, hey, the guy had made enough money off it to retire permanently, nurse his PTSD and feed his beloved mongrel of a dog pizza. There was no begrudging him that.

They all wanted to say something about Loki the villain. Mostly because that was all most of them had known about him. Only Tony and Sigurd knew Serrure the person.

It was academic anyway. He'd liked to remember his glory days as Loki and had always had Tony call him that.

"Remember when he robbed that - was it a candy store? And he had a gun. We were all terrified, but we went in there like proper superheroes and had him arrested. The heroes of the town," Natasha remarked.

Clint chuckled. "It was a water pistol - had water in it. I fired it at the ground out of curiosity."

"It had hydrochloric acid in it," Tony corrected. "Lokes took it from a lab at his university. High concentration, could've blinded or seriously burned any of us."

They fell silent again.

It had been rather ridiculous, the whole thing of it. Loki had robbed a _candy_ store. And it hadn't been for money. It had been for candy. A childish crime. The Avengers had turned up, all bravery and heroics. They'd made the newspaper: _Masked Vigilantes Save Sweet Treats._

Childish occupation.

Like Serrure's - sorry, Loki's - plan to use his mind-control ray on Brooklyn, get himself a zombie army. Much, much later, a drunk Loki had shown Tony to his workshop, shown him the bass speaker hidden inside the box. It did nothing. It just thrummed.

Loki had giggled crazily when Tony had realised they'd spent all afternoon chasing around after a skinny teen and a bass speaker.

It had felt like heroics.

Tony had kissed him and laughed along at the joke that was the Avengers.

The Avengers had split up after a few years. There was only so much of it one could handle. Clint didn't leave his house much, except to get groceries and walk his dog. Tony had gone on to become a multi-billionaire; his basic inventions that had made him the Iron Man had involved into some of the most brilliant creations in the world. Natasha and Steve had both been snapped up by the government, owing to their quite amazing talents that were wasted working with a bunch of noobs. Bruce was barely human anymore. He was the only one out of them with superpowers, destructive as they were, and so he blithely kept working on his physics even if his humanity was slipping so much that he couldn't see the point.

Bruce hadn't said a word yet and probably wouldn't. He didn't talk much at all anymore. Maybe he was worried he would roar instead of speaking normally.

Sigurd was the one who'd never let it go. They all pretended that they didn't know that he was still donning his costume and taking to the streets. He was an imposing creature, a cross between bodybuilder and weightlifter in appearance, and so radiant sometimes it seemed like he was luminescent. The massive hammer and inhuman clothing only added to the look. They also knew that he had a day job at his father's company, being a serious lawyer or something - though the image of him stuffed into a business suit was hard to conjure - and that he took to the streets by night. When he found time to sleep was a mystery.

"You remember when Loki took the observation deck at the Empire State Building hostage?" Sigurd said, switching to Serrure's code name without even noticing.

"I swang in with my grappling hook," Clint said with a chuckle. "He grabbed me, tried to drop me over the edge of the building. I'd be dead if it weren't for you, Tony."

Tony somehow managed to smile at that. It wasn't funny. He knew full well from being told much later that that was the day Loki had discovered he was adopted, something Sigurd had never told the others. Loki was not mentally stable. Loki had been standing on the observation deck, considering committing suicide or making people scared of him. Thank god he'd picked the latter.

"Happy days," Steve said blandly.

That, too, wasn't a whole truth. Those days had been fraught with fear and arguments and an increasing dissociation with their original purpose.

Why had they done it? They'd wanted to help people. Steve and Thor certainly had. Bruce had just wanted a group of fellow freaks he could fit into, and Tony had been much the same. Clint and Natasha were adrenaline junkies.

Loki had done it as a cry for help. It took Loki two days after Sigurd's first excursion as Thor for Loki to corner him in his room and tell him that he _knew._

But of all the sickening things, Sig's parents had actually been proud of him for putting his hefty left hook to good use. So Loki had demanded attention in a similar way.

That was also something Tony had learned later. At the time, he'd just been another masked villain with a weird theme; in Loki's case, it had been trickery and fire.

As though continuing his thoughts, Clint said "Remember the Molotov in the bulk food store?"

"You could smell the popcorn from blocks away," Steve said.

"Turns out non-dairy creamer explodes," Tony added.

"We had a lot of villains," Clint said. "But Loki was the best. Always brought something new to the table. Always a fun fight."

In later times, people would ask if the masked vigilante or masked criminal came first. In reality, it was the vigilante cracking down on muggings and robberies and assaults. The amount of ink they got in the newspapers was what prompted criminals to take it up, but they never tended to be the serious criminals; more gimmicky, less money-orientated. Loki was one of those. He never tried to make money, only chaos.

It turned out that Loki couldn't live without it.

"I don't like to remember Loki as that crazy, live-endangering kid," Tony said, his voice a little raw.

"How else would you remember him?" Sigurd asked.

"Your brother was sick, Thor. He did it because he wanted help that you never gave him. You always just hit him," Tony said. "I'm not going to speak ill of someone not in his right mind."

"He was hurting people-"

"He wanted to hurt himself, not them. He did. Why do you think we're here? You don't usually accidentally shoot yourself in the head," Tony snapped. "Loki was just an outlet for Serrure's crazy. He wasn't someone Serrure could just take off like dirty clothes and throw away, either; Loki never went away, not years later."

"And how would you know?!" Sigurd shouted, angry at Tony's harsh words.

"I knew him better than you did, you asshole!" Tony shouted back. "All of us have lived lives since the Avengers ended except you! Look at Nat and Steve - they're both spies, they're next-level Avengers! Bruce is a scientist; Clint's a bestselling author. And funnily enough, Lokes kept living his life too. He wasn't Loki forever. He got over it and started working with me, started inventing. He was a genius, Sig - or do you want me to call you Thor when you're talking business? - your brother always understood where I was coming from. He saw the world how I do. He was helping me, you know that? We were building the new arc reactor together, we were saving the world together. If you ever did anything but shout at him you'd know that!" Tony was a little out of breath after that outburst.

"The Avengers did not just end," Thor said, surprisingly roughly. "You all quit. It was no natural disaster; you walked out on your own civic duty."

"Enforcing the law is the job of the law enforcers," Clint disagreed. "We were kids in dumb outfits. We didn't fix anything. We were lucky we weren't killed."

"There's nothing dishonourable about moving on," Natasha concurred.

"I never wanted to treat your brother based on what he did back then," Tony continued. "He was sick then. I gave him a clean start, let him move on with his life. There's no crime in that."

Initially, when they'd been battling Loki, they'd thought he was just some costumed random out to fight Thor specifically. It was only after Thor had stopped them from giving him to the police for the second time that they'd noticed the kid they went to university with underneath that helmet.

Tony had initially felt a little sorry for him. That had been why he allowed Loki to take that job interview at Stark Industries despite their history.

It had also been why he'd gone out for a drink with Loki once he'd gotten the job. He'd found him to be dark, cutting, but ultimately funny and clever. You had to be, just to stay alive, when your head worked like his did.

That had also been why days later, Tony had watched a movie with a touch- and attention-starved Loki. Things had escalated from there.

Once upon a time, back in the day, they'd had a meeting _sans_ Thor about Loki. They, unlike Thor, could see what was really going on and wanted to help him. They never did. Loki just stopped coming out one day.

He'd been in hospital after his appendix burst for some time, which Thor never told them. Tony and maybe a few of the others might've visited him, if they knew. Afterwards, Loki just hadn't wanted to anymore. Poor bastard. Maybe his brother or someone else said something to him.

Without Loki, it had only taken a couple of months for the Avengers to collapse entirely. Not only were they constantly arguing and lying to each other, but Bruce had work elsewhere, Natasha was graduating and moving back home, and Tony had work obligations.

By the end of it, only Thor - Sigurd - had actually wanted to keep doing it.

Tony didn't miss it, not really, though he had missed the companionship and the general air of the clandestine about it. And the friendships, at least from the times they'd been getting along.

Most of all, he missed his Loki. The guy he'd met afterwards. The train wreck in slow motion, always seeing life a little too clearly. The trickster, the inventor, the occasional lover, the guy who couldn't handle his own life no matter how simple it was.

How he'd found Loki, curled up on the roof like he was watching the sunset, gun in hand and skull splattered all over the AC vent behind him. So cold.

Tony had almost been waiting for it, despite his best efforts. He'd already talked Loki down off that roof before. Evidently Loki had wanted to make sure Tony wouldn't stop him.

Loki, after everything, had never really believed that Tony or anyone else cared about him. Certainly whenever he saw Sigurd he didn't get a warm welcome, he was distant to his family, and he had no one outside of Tony and his work.

"I loved your dumbass, brilliant brother," Tony admitted, a slight waver in his voice. He dumped flowers made out of a light metal alloy Loki had engineered onto Loki's grave, then walked off. "And if I ever see any of you again, it'll be a million years too soon."

Bruce hadn't said a word.


End file.
